I have so many thoughts that I could jot down and share with you. Today, I thought I’d give you a random collection, and perhaps something will inspire you where you are to keep going on for the Lord more!
1) We’ve just come through the Easter season, and oh, what a refreshing reset that has been for me personally! We’ve been attending an Easter conference the last five years as a family (hosted by a church group we’ve grown to love quite dearly), and this year we were blessed to go down there and worship with them again. It’s so good to remember what the Lord has done for us. To have rich fellowship. To laugh and sing and share together. What a blessing!
2) I’ve been listening to a lot of songs from past years of A Cappella Gospel Sing lately, and it’s struck me over and over again how much we have to thank the Lord for! It’s amazing how songs can lift our spirits and refocus us on what matters most! If you need a bit of encouragement, I’d recommend reading chapters from the Psalms or picking up a hymnal and studying the words to the old hymns. There’s so much depth there.
3) This week has been a quieter week at home, so I’ve been able to do a bit of sewing and scrapbooking—two things I love doing, but rarely make time for. It’s so refreshing to be able to sit down and see something come together from a pile of mismatched pieces, or look through pictures and remember how the Lord has been faithful in the past. God is so good!
4) On our five-hour trip home from Easter conference, those of us in the van listened to probably 3-4 hours’ worth of a dramatized version of Christiana (Pilgrim’s Progress, part 2). I’m very familiar with the story, as I virtually lived on recorded stories when I was younger, but it’s probably been a good 4-6 years since I last listened to the story. It’s so good to be reminded of how the Lord uses different circumstances to bring us closer to Himself, that He is well able to take care of us, and He is the One we need to constantly focus on if we are to ever find victory!
5) I’ve just come through reading Ezekiel, and though I got a lot out of Isaiah and Jeremiah, this book has been a bit more dry reading for me. Probably because it’s a lot of prophecy I feel like I can’t understand so well, and I also haven’t remembered to pray for the illumination of the Holy Spirit as much as I need (ever met the trap called “I Can Do It Myself?”). HOWEVER, this morning I read the portion about the river running out of the sanctuary and into the Dead Sea and how everything that lives in the water was able to live in that river. This passage has always been precious to me, for two reasons: 1) To me, this river symbolizes God’s wisdom. There’s always more of it coming, and the further you wade into it, the more there is. You’ll never run out. 2) In Jesus’ love, there is life. And like the river, starting out as a trickle, and then becoming a full flood with all kinds of life in it, so His love brings all kinds of life to our souls.
Now, I may be terrible at allegory, but these are things my heart is mulling over right now.
What have you been blessed with in this past week?
